Evaluation of optical properties of CMK-1 and CMK-3 mesoporous carbons and introduction them as very interesting black pigments

•CMK-1 and CMK-3 mesoporous carbons were synthesized successfully.•Optical properties of these materials indicated that they have so low reflectance.•Reflectance of CMK-1 mesoporous carbon was below 0.4% in visible region.•CMK-1 and CMK-3 absorbed almost the whole wavelength range from UV to NIR.•These materials are suitable for absorbing applications.

In this work, the optical properties of CMK-1 and CMK-3 mesoporous carbons in the UV/vis/NIR ranges have been studied and reported for the first time. Firstly, mesoporous carbon materials (CMK-1 and CMK-3) have been synthesized using mesoporous silica molecular sieves (MCM-48 and SBA-15, respectively) as template. Finally, the infiltrated carbon precursor into silica mesopores is subjected to a carbonization process, in order to obtain the carbon framework. The structural characteristics, morphologies, pore characteristics and optical properties of the carbon materials were investigated by X-ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron microscopy, nitrogen sorption and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. The obtained results indicated that the mesoporous carbons have well-defined morphology and very high absorption in UV/vis/NIR regions. They represent blacker materials than those introduced in other papers with very low reflectances (<1%, even below 0.4% in visible region for CMK-1 sample) and high absorption (∼99%) and therefore they are suitable selections as pigment for black coatings.